Society and the World

Guns aren’t lawful;

I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

Let us sleep now.

Whatever hope is yours,

It seemed that out of battle I escaped

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Was it for this the clay grew tall?

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

All a poet can do today is warn.

My subject is War, and the pity of War.

Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie … A dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.

The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.

Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.

Serious sport … is war minus the shooting.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible.

Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.

Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.